“I give him a hug every day.”
Minnesota Timberwolves coach and president of basketball operations Tom Thibodeau lets those words hang in the air for a moment, like a thought balloon in some kind of absurd cartoon.
The notion is comical. Thibodeau seems as huggable as a square block of granite, of which he is physically reminiscent. He’s got a New England accent, a low forehead and a lifelong case of coach’s throat. When he orders a coffee, you feel bad for the coffee. Then he laughs, and you realize Thibs has made a joke, playing on his own reputation as a throwback hardass.
He’s talking about Andrew Wiggins, who arrives with the T-Wolves to play his hometown Toronto Raptors on Thursday night and remains perhaps the most valuable gemstone in Canadian basketball’s overflowing treasure chest, but one in need of polishing.
The question is whether Wiggins can absorb the kind of tough coaching Thibodeau is known for and which the T-Wolves—not-so-proud owners of the NBA’s longest playoff drought, now in its 12th year—hired him to provide.
The belief has always been that the reserved 21-year-old would be most comfortable being worked on with a soft cloth. Bring out the sandpaper and he just might say, “Nah, I’m good,” when it comes to going through the not-always-fun, not-always-easy job of maximizing his physical potential, the depths of which appear limitless at times.
And we’re about to find out if there’s any truth to that.
The old NBA adage is that by year three of their careers, most players have taken on the form they will inhabit for the remainder. Wiggins is in his third season. Where he goes from here matters to the Timberwolves—and to Canadian basketball, as it tries to guide its deepest-ever generation of talent into success on the international stage. If Thibodeau can coach up Canada’s highest-profile player, it can only help the cause.
So far, he and Thibodeau seem to be getting along just fine.
“It’s been great,” Wiggins, the No. 1 pick of the 2014 NBA Draft, said in a recent interview. “I like him as a coach a lot. He lets me play. I’ve been learning a lot. He’s very hands-on. He teaches you on and off the court. All the little stuff, he does.”
But the NBA is full of skeptics. More than one front office is interested to see if the hard-edged coach will be able to successfully co-exist with Wiggins, whose demeanour and body language can scream “relax” even when he’s filling box scores like few 21-year-olds ever have.
Thibodeau doesn’t do “relax”: “He’s no-nonsense,” says Toronto Raptors guard DeMar DeRozan, who has worked alongside the T-Wolves boss during summers with USA Basketball. “I’ve probably seen Thibs laugh about two or three times during the Olympics, and that’s with the Olympic team. I can’t even imagine what he’s like with his own team.”
Elsewhere in the NBA the question is if coach Thibodeau will be patient enough with his young stars—along with Wiggins, Minnesota is pinning its hopes on high-flying Zach LaVine and second-year phenom Karl-Anthony Towns—or if he’ll force president Thibodeau to make a deal for some win-now veterans.
The Timberwolves were a popular pick to slide into the Western Conference playoff picture this year, but in the early stages of the season remain mired near the basement.
Wiggins embodies the club’s inconsistency. In November, he put together a six-game stretch in which he played at a level that suggests there could be an MVP season in his future, as he averaged 33 points, 5.3 rebounds and 3.5 assists while shooting 53 percent from three and 51 percent overall, and getting to the free-throw line 10 times a game.
His next six games? With teams loading up on him, Wiggins’s numbers fell off a cliff: 14.7 points, three rebounds and 1.7 assists while shooting 29 percent from the floor and just 13.6 percent from deep.
And Wiggins still seems to lose interest when the ball is on the other side of the floor offensively or defensively, rarely providing the kind of team-sparking ball-hawking that would show up in steals, blocks, deflections or rebounds.
For the moment, Thibodeau is talking big-picture. He acknowledges that Wiggins requires some tough love, but says that he’s receptive.
“My job is to tell him the truth as I see it,” he says. “And I’ve found [him] to be very direct. He’s very coachable and he continues to get better.”
Thibodeau feels a responsibility to bring out the best in Wiggins—to make sure nothing gets left on the table.
“You never want to put a lid on a guy like that,” he says. “You want to challenge him every day, push him beyond what you think he’s capable of doing. He’s got incredible talent. The more he puts into it, the more he’s going to get out of it. He continues to grow, but that’s the challenge not only for me, but for our entire organization.”
Thibodeau cut his teeth as an assistant with the hard-edged New York Knicks teams of the 1990s, where tough guys like Charles Oakley and Anthony Mason patrolled the paint. He earned his first head-coaching job after helping proven veterans Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce and Ray Allen lead the Boston Celtics to an NBA title in 2008. As head coach with Chicago, he gained a reputation for pushing his players to the edge of their physical and mental limits—and sometimes beyond. He’s got strong beliefs about what works in the league.
Does Wiggins have it? Does cool and detached cut it?
“You never really know somebody until you’re with them every day. Sometimes you misjudge people because you think, ‘Ah, he’s quiet.’ You think something isn’t burning, but I know how much he burns inside,” says Thibodeau. “Conversely, you see some guys who’re loud and you think, ‘That guy’s real intense,’ and you get around them and you realize he’s not really what he appears to be. You learn, over the years, that winners come in all different personality types.”
Wiggins says he’s ready to take the next step in his career. He didn’t play for Canada this summer in part so he could put more uninterrupted time into building his body and growing his game, so he could meet the demands Thibodeau is placing on him.
“He just wants what he wants,” Wiggins says of the coach who will likely shape the most pivotal years of his career. “He’s proven, you know? His system works. We all have to buy in.”
Hugs all around.